The following is a letter to the editor that was sent to the Kalamazoo Gazette.

By Harold W. Beu

Cattle rancher Cliven Bundy has become famous for refusing to pay the Bureau of Land Management [BLM] fees for his cattle freely grazing on public lands for more than 20 years. After the BLM confiscated Bundy's cattle to pay those fees, he called for an all-out "range war" to protect his interests. He got support from conservative politicians and pundits, as well as right-wing paramilitary groups such as the South Nevada Militia who brought their automatic rifles to fire on federal agents.

Now, compare Bundy to another trespasser and "thief" according to the authorities – Kalamazoo's own Jessica Clark.

She was sentenced on April 16 to 26 days in the LaPorte County Jail in Indiana. Jessica chose jail time over probation to "highlight the injustice of tar sands industry, while standing in solidarity with political prisoners across the globe," said a statement issued by the Michigan Coalition Against Tar Sands [Michigan CATS].

Clark and other activists from Michigan CATS are trying to stop Enbridge from expanding the same pipeline system responsible for the 2010 oil spill in the Kalamazoo River, the largest inland tar-sand oil spill in U.S. history.

I witnessed Clark's trial. I was moved by her courage and but also was struck by the comments of the judge.

He told her that while a student in Ann Arbor he was in involved in the divestment movement against South Africa. He appreciated her commitment to a good cause, but said he thought she may have been "unpractical" by not taking the plea deal, so she could sit in jail as a martyr. Perhaps, but when one is up against the forces of a major corporation and a legal and political system that protects that corporation, it seems one needs to do something more than just write letters to one's congressperson or to the newspaper.

Here, we see Bundy and Clark, both were trespassing, but for different reasons. Bundy worked for his own self-interest and was willing to use violence to get his way. Clark, in the proud tradition of nonviolent civil disobedience of Martin Luther King, Jr., was willing to accept the consequences of her actions, maturely and bravely.

The problem is that not many people have heard of her. But perhaps, some day, though, people will hear of Clark throughout the land, and those of us who witnessed her courage and commitment to the cause of healing our land, can say we were there to see the beginning of a young woman's calling as a speaker of truth to power and to those of us who are not so courageous and need to take action.

Harold W. Beu is a retired educator and Unitarian minister. He resides in Kalamazoo.